


You Old Fiend

by Ghostinthehouse



Series: Demon and Angel Professors [62]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Disabled Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Other, Pet Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23130952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: A student in Linguistics sets up an anonymous survey to gather terms of endearment, and gets a few very odd results...
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Demon and Angel Professors [62]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1412962
Comments: 35
Kudos: 1169
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens





	You Old Fiend

**Author's Note:**

> Most of these endearments are collected from previous parts of the series.

A student in Linguistics sets up an anonymous survey to gather terms of endearment - anything you say tenderly and lovingly to or about someone you love, the description reads, along with directions on how to take part - and posts up the results. For the most part, the posted results run as expected. Lots of dearests, darlings, sweethearts, angels, and so on. But off on the edge there's a set of true oddities. Who calls their beloved a wily old serpent? Or a fiend, or a demon, for that matter? Who says tenderly that their beloved is a bastard?

There's a lot of speculation and wondering, but the survey is anonymous. The other students can't exactly go around asking everyone if they are the one with the weird endearments, can they?. It wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't be right. If someone volunteers it, of course, that would be different. Likewise, if they're caught in the act, or overheard saying it. There's a lot of quiet betting on who might say it - and who it might be said about, and a lot of ears stretched to catch any murmured endearment.

Dr Fell, they know, has his Dear Anthony, and they have all heard him call his husband his dear (he calls everyone dear, a few students protest in vain, it isn't anything special). While he does use ancient slang sometimes, surely a side effect of spending so much of his time with his nose in old books, he doesn't seem the type to call someone a fiend or a demon.

Dr Crowley, everyone agrees, probably is a demon. At least, he acts like one, all evil, vicious, and sharp-tongued savagery. He wears black clothes that cling to every line of his thin body and he walks with a saunter that shows everything off to anyone looking. But whether he has a partner in the university that would call him that as an endearment is another matter. Unlike Dr Fell, who can hardly go ten minutes without referring to his beloved husband, Dr Crowley never mentions his personal life at all. For all anyone knows, he could be a tree nymph, planting himself out in one of the greenhouse beds overnight and uprooting himself again for lessons the next day.

***

Crowley hears them speculating as he strolls past and his mouth twitches in amusement as the strange results reach his ears that way rather than him reading them. On his harsh face, though, it looks decidedly grumpier than on someone softer, like Aziraphale. He could give them answers, if they did bother to ask instead of guess, but only if they asked flat out. He isn't going to expose his angel (or himself) to uncomfortable questions about what they are and why they use those terms if he can help it.

One of his braver grad students surprises him and does actually ask, while they're working on a less fiddly task in the greenhouse, about the rumour that he's a demon.

He stares at them for a moment, and then throws his head back and laughs. "I assure you," he says, when he's caught his breath again, "I do not keep a pitchfork hidden in the tool cupboard."

"I didn't think you did," the grad student replies, smiling in response to the open laughter. "I've been in that cupboard far too often to have missed it. But the rumour is out there."

Crowley shrugs. "Let them rumour, it won't be anything new. Now, when you've finished that task, I believe there is just time to..." He spins it off into a set of instructions, not necessarily tricky, but a fiddly task that requires enough bending and twisting to make his popping joints and bad leg protest fiercely if he does it himself rather than palm it off on a younger and more able student (not that those two necessarily go together, but this one hasn't said or done anything to make him suspect that isn't the case here).


End file.
